Hunger
by Frisky Wallabee
Summary: Sequel to Shoot. AU story. 'I'm a model' Rated for substance abuse, implied incest, implied rape and character death
1. Mush

Blink slid his tongue around his lips before stretching luxuriously on the bed.

"When some people take it," he mused. "They just lie there. It makes me want to fuck. Mushy, you wanna fuck?"

Mush sat on the other side of the room, all of his limbs crossed. It was quite obvious that it was something he didn't want to do.

"C'mere," Blink beckoned, stroking his ribcage.

Mush couldn't stop staring at the bruises on his arms and neck. How many times would he do it? How many times would Blink go out and shoot up? The makeup and retouching could only hide it for so long. No one but a sadist would want to jerk off to a junkie with bruised arms.

"Aw, I know," he cooed. "You don't wanna 'cause of your daddeh. Didn't like it when he fucked you, baby?"

Mush stood and started for the bathroom. He didn't know what else _to_ do. Blink was intolerable when he was high. And he was horribly mopey when he was sober. He kept things in, Mush had realized. The rape, the drugs, everything. Blink was killing himself. He knew it. He'd end up like Jack and David; another modeling casualty.

Mush splashed cold water onto his face, feeling the icy liquid hit him like Blink's earlier words about his father. He had told him about his father. Dead in the ground from cancer. Mush had thought he had done it to him. He would have if he could've. He closed his eyes and rested his burning forehead on the cool mirror. Hands that had once grasped his mother's silk sheets wrapped firmly around the porcelain edge of the sink. He was fucked up. He bit down on a lower lip that had once been bitten like a piece of fruit by his father.

Mush clicked his tongue, remembering that it was the same tongue that had tasted the salty smell of his father, tasting something that had made him. He spat angrily into the sink, suddenly disgusted with himself.

He grabbed his toothbrush and scrubbed his teeth hard. He couldn't taste anything but peppermint but somewhere, his taste buds could remember the taste of his father and it sickened him.

After he brushed his teeth, Mush trudged back into the bedroom to see Blink tying a rubber band around his upper arm, tightening it with his teeth.

"Blink, don't," he said wearily, having to watch him pat the arm for a vein.

"I'm good with needles," he murmured, groping blindly in their nightstand.

"Blink, don't," he repeated. "Please. You're already…"

But it was too late. Mush cringed when he saw Blink slide the needle under his flesh.

"Mmm," he murmured, stretching. "My mind is an ocean, Mush. Swelling and unswelling, rising and falling…billowing, man. Like the ocean. Waves crashing in my mind. My mind is the eye of the ocean…"

"Blink," he said quickly, running to him and putting his arms around his slim shoulders. "Please…let's get out of here. Ditch the scene. It's fucking us up. We'll end up like Jack and David. Let's go to California or Europe. Yeah, let's go to Europe, Blink. Please."

Blink reached for him and ran his fingers through his hair. "I want to climb inside your mind, Mush. Tell me what you dream. Tell me what you want."

He shook him. "Come on. Let's go! We don't have to be models. We can go out, be normal. We'll get you off the junk. Come on, we'll go to Europe. The sexiest men, Blink."

Blink let his head fall on Mush's shoulder and he was smiling. Mush hugged him, his own words reverberating in his head. About Jack and David. Jack and Blink were the only two he had told about his father. Blink because he wanted an honest relationship and Jack because Jack had admitted what his photographer had done to him when he was eleven. Not that it mattered anymore. Jack was dead and Blink might as well be. Still, saying their names brought back the memories of the shoots and the endless waiting in the hospital and seeing David looking about seven years old on the bed and then the funeral.

Mush let his head fall against Blink's. He needed to help him. He couldn't let that happen to him.


	2. Blink

Blink had seen him that day. He had been coming back from a shoot in which he and Skittery had to pretend to be sucking each other off—something that would stick in his frenzied mind for a long time—and he saw him. The silver fox. The tanned sicko who drew him up to his apartment and raped him. Blink had played it off like he hadn't cared. That he was fine with it. But the memory clung to him like the handcuffs that had pressed into his wrists as they were bound and hung from the antique hook.

He pressed warm air into his hands, remembering how cold he had been that night. He hated when he was sober. It was so much easier just to shoot up and forget everything. It was best after he'd been clean. The feel, it was magical.

Blink rubbed his arms, feeling the tender skin. He needed to get out of there, he knew. He needed to take up Mush's offer, go to Europe. But he couldn't. He knew he could never leave the city. It curled into his veins like the junk. Manhattan was in his blood. He couldn't leave it.

Instead, he went back to the agency that day and got doused in foundation to cover the bruises. He stretched on the tarp and put his hand seductively on his crouch, staring vacantly at the enormous Cyclops eye of the camera. He remembered when he was little and it first began. He'd clutch stuffed animals and aim his big blue eyes at the camera, smiling. It'd be for toy stores or jeans or cereal. He had loved it then. It was like drugs, the flash of the bulb and the view of his pictures in a magazine.

Now he never saw the magazines. He just knew that men picked up the magazines to beat off or even curious teenage girls who didn't know what to do about the boy in their algebra or whatever. Now he used actual drugs to get that high. The junk.

"Alright," Weasel said tiredly. "You can go now. And lay off the smack, Blink. That foundation is expensive."

"Your compassion floors me," he deadpanned.

"Well you're a mess," he snapped. "You saw what happened to David."

"David didn't eat. He wasn't a junkie," Blink reminded him. "Besides, I'm fine."

With that, he left and went back to their apartment where Mush and a syringe awaited him.

--

He arose in the middle of the night with Mush curled around him, breath warm on his face. Blink kissed his cheek before edging away. Per usual, he tightened a rubber band around his arm and patted a non-bruised spot on his arm before inserting the needle.

Blink stretched out on the floor, feeling his body warm.

He dreamed of being in Europe with Mush where he walked glitter-paved streets and fairies with bright green hair and berets spoke French and handed them baguettes. Where everyone was happy and speaking in languages that tickled his ears.

He dreamed of he and Mush making love inside of a tent. No, not a tent…a flower. They were inside a flower, the dark veins showing as the sun filtered through. The fairies were giggling and flitting about the flower, screaming in French. The sun rose like a slice of fruit in the morning and birds sang to them. Trees grew like giants and sheltered them from when the sun was mean. The fairies were screaming.

Blink was dreaming of a better life. He often did that when he was high. He would shoot up, lay back and let his mind just wander. Potheads did that but it was junk for him. He would dream so long that he'd wake up and it would be night again.

Except this time he didn't wake up from his dream.


End file.
